Based on NBC's recent string of failures, you might be surprised that both of NBC's newest shows, Southland and Parks & Recreation did well enough in their initial airings to warrant renewal. If they can hold reasonably steady, they'll both be coming back.
I'd be surprised to see all four of these shows renewed: Chuck, My Name is Earl, Law & Order, and Medium. But I'd be equally surprised to see all of them canceled. My guess is 3 of the 4 make it, including Law & Order.
Four other shows are certain to be canceled: Kings, Life, Knight Rider and Kath & Kim.
Starting this week, instead of using the 18-49 viewership for the calculations, I’m going to instead use the 18-49 rating, which simply is the percentage of the US 18-49 TV adults population. (There are an estimated 132 million US adults 18-49 in TV households, so a 1.0 rating is equal to 1.32 million adults 18-49). Since we only get 18-49 demo ratings for each show on an overnight basis, that makes the values in the Renew/Cancel Index easier to compare with the overnight demo ratings results.
This is a breakdown of NBC scripted shows and their renewal and cancelation prospects. Here are the others:
Our Renew / Cancel index predicts potential renewal for *next* season: Canceled/Not Returning, In Danger, or Renewal Likely for 2009-10, Renewal Announced.
| PROGRAM | Net | STD 18-49 Rating (LIVE+SD) | Network Avg. STD 18-49 rating | Renew/ Cancel index | Status |
| CRUSOE | NBC | 0.9 | 2.3 | 0.39 | canceled |
| KINGS | NBC | 1.2 | 2.3 | 0.52 | |
| FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS | NBC | 1.3 | 2.3 | 0.57 | returning |
| LIPSTICK JUNGLE | NBC | 1.5 | 2.3 | 0.65 | canceled |
| LIFE (WED) | NBC | 1.6 | 2.3 | 0.70 | |
| KNIGHT RIDER | NBC | 1.8 | 2.3 | 0.78 | |
| MY OWN WORST ENEMY | NBC | 2.0 | 2.3 | 0.87 | canceled |
| KATH & KIM | NBC | 2.1 | 2.3 | 0.91 | |
| Law And Order | NBC | 2.1 | 2.3 | 0.91 | |
| Chuck | NBC | 2.4 | 2.3 | 1.04 | |
| MY NAME IS EARL | NBC | 2.5 | 2.3 | 1.09 | |
| MEDIUM | NBC | 2.5 | 2.3 | 1.09 | |
| Parks and Recreation | NBC | 2.8 | 2.3 | 1.22 | |
| Southland | NBC | 3.1 | 2.3 | 1.35 | |
| 30 Rock | NBC | 3.2 | 2.3 | 1.39 | returning |
| Law And Order:SVU | NBC | 3.3 | 2.3 | 1.43 | returning |
| E.R. | NBC | 3.4 | 2.3 | 1.48 | final season |
| HEROES | NBC | 3.6 | 2.3 | 1.57 | returning |
| OFFICE | NBC | 4.0 | 2.3 | 1.74 | returning |
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The Renew/Cancel Index is a show's Season To Date adults 18-49 viewership divided by its networks Season to Date average 18-49 viewership. I have adjusted the NBC adults 18-49 season to date average to remove the increase (of 370,000) it received during the Super Bowl week because that increase had nothing to do with the normal viewership of the network or any of its other shows.
Notes:
Friday night - Friday is quickly becoming an 18-49 wasteland, so these shows may be allowed a lower threshold for success than shows on other nights. I honestly have no idea what criteria the CW will use in keeping or not keeping Everybody Hates Chris and The Game. Because of that, and the recent renewals at other networks of poor rated comedies, I'm indicating renewal for them.
Life moved to Wednesday beginning November 5. This is its Wednesday only STD 18-49 average as calculated by me. For past reference, the 4 Life episodes that aired on Fridays averaged 2.043 million adults 18-49.
Heroes is definitely back for next season.
How did we come up with our Index? We found that last season, the future of a show was nearly directly related to its adults 18-49 average viewers divided by its networks 18-49 average viewers. Many other factors may matter, but they all seemed to boil down to that one number. Because American Idol so skewed Fox's 18-49 average, and would make nearly all Fox shows fall into the "cancel" range, for Fox, I used the last STD 18-49 average *before* Idol. Last season, if a show had better than 92% of its network's average 18-49 viewership (0.92 in our index) it was pretty safe, below that level it was in danger.
Remember that plenty can change before the end of the season, particularly for the shows with indexes between 0.80 and last season’s renewal line of 0.92. The list is presented in a (and has to be, since I cannot predict future ratings) “what would happen if the season ended today” mode. Could the renewal line be 0.86 this season? Possibly. It might also be 0.95. Might it be 0.70? No chance.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All viewership numbers are Live+SD.
bye bye chuck, you are the weakest link, goodbye!
I think I can see the reasoning here. All four are very close except for Law and Order, so I assume Bill has a reason for believing it will be renewed over Chuck which has a better ranking.
What’s the reason, Bill?
Personally, I think Law & Order goes to USA.
Were I you, I’d have answered the question “Why isn’t Chuck listed as cancelled?” in the post, because it’s a sure bet you’re going to have to answer it. Lol.
Also, i’m sure there’s a “Why is Chuck in danger if it’s doing better than L&O?” question coming.
Good for Parks and Rec for getting halfway decent ratings. And good for NBC for finally launching not one, but two onlysuccessfulbecauseitsNBC new series.
Oh look at that, the L&O question came as I was typing. Lol.
RSH, my guess is that Dick Wolf + history = Law & Order 20th season, even if it’s just 13 episodes. And it’s not like the ratings this season have been terrible. It’s not like the well CBS will have to reach into to pull out Adventures of Old Christine.
So, just so I understand this correctly, is this the data for the first episodes of Southland and Parks & Rec, or is this from both of the episodes that have been shown so far?
Will, both episodes.
Oh ok thanks Julia. I’m quite surprised, to be honest, I didn’t think they were doing this well or even would do this well. I watched a little bit of P&R, and it seemed alot like the Office, but I guess there could be quite a fan base for that sort of thing…
I’d be surprised if Earl and Medium were cancelled because these shows are very popular overseas.
Staying with Earl, I think they’re close to 100 episodes which would guarantee syndication, so I’d be amazed if NBC didn’t give Earl a small “half” season to get to the magic 100 before replacing it mid-season.
Oh, yeah, right, Bill, I forgot the longevity of that show! My bad. Thanks.
i see it as
Earl = picked up by FOX
Medium = renewed
L&0 = Renewed
Chuck = 60 cancelled /40 renewed
Index numbers are up across the board, which can only mean total viewers went down for NBC within the past few weeks. I guess that makes sense, what with the weather being beautiful and all.
L&O is almost definitely coming back strictly because the marketing lines for the 20th season practically write themselves. They can capture enough eyeballs to justify keeping it around just by it being such a special season number.
Parks&Rec will be back unless it bombs these next few weeks. Even if it starts to pull lower numbers than Chuck, it could easily be explained as fewer people watching TV now that the weather is nicer. Does anyone know how long P&R is running for? Is it an entire 13-episode run, or just a limited rollout for now?
Southland will be back. Not sure when considering the content of the show and the Leno deal, but it pulls great numbers and they want to keep on good terms with the creator of ER. Maybe it will copy LOST and return Sundays at 10 PM in 2010 when football is over.
My Name is Earl is probably gone. Ratings are decent enough, but I’ll take NBC at their word when they say they care about the quality and potential for each show in their renewal decisions. My Name is Earl would reflect poorly since the show started stalling last season and just seems out of fresh material. They’ll probably let FOX have this one.
Medium seems to be established as a mid-season replacement, so odds are it will come back. Even if their new shows end up being hits, they’ll have extra time slots opened up after football that need to be filled. I think Medium would work well on Sunday nights.
Chuck… is my favorite show so anything I say will suspiciously end up concluding that this show will be renewed for a full season. It would be perfect as a lead-in to the Office and 30 Rock, but unfortunately Parks&Rec and that new comedy make this an impossibility. The ratings haven’t increased much, but – as the index correctly notes – this is actually an improvement considering the total number of viewers is down.
Therefore this show is coming back for a full season. See, I told you I’d end up concluding that!
Dave,
FOX owns the rights to My Name is Earl, so only they benefit from overseas viewership and syndication. I believe NBC benefits from live (on NBC) and Hulu viewership.
Mike, Parks & Recreation has a planned 6 episode run.
Does anyone think that NBC may renew all of the bubble shows was short 13 Episode Seasons just in case Leno bombs? Since they are relatively stable performers for the network they can keep them and extend their episode orders if they need to replace Leno quickly. Just a thought, but maybe NBC is smart enough to have a backup plan, then again we are talking about NBC…lol
Purely based on this data, I would give “Chuck” the edge over “Law and Order” and “Medium,” soley because “Chuck” is the only show of the three that is appropriate for 8 pm. “Law and Order” and “Medium” are 10 pm shows that are competing with other programs for 9 pm slots on the new Jay Leno network.
That’s a good point Rob, but I think L&O’s age will trump any content issues it may have. I do think My “Name is Earl” is the weakest link here, people my make a syndication or DVD sales argument for the show, but that isn’t going to benefit NBC in anyway unless FOX is willing to give them the show for next to nothing. FOX will be the only benefactor of syndication and DVD sales since they own the show.
I completely agree with Tommy. Does NBC actually anticipate that this Leno thing will do well? Personally, I think it’s going to tank. If they’re smart they’ll hold onto Chuck, Medium, and Law & Order for 13 episode orders. I doubt all of their new shows will take off, so at least they’d have 3 steady performers that could be extended into full seasons if need be. Chuck especially. Because even though the numbers are nothing to write home about, it’s managed to stay very consistent in an absolutely brutal timeslot. It has a cult following that would watch it no matter what the competition is. And I’m not sure NBC could do much better in that Monday 8pm slot to be honest.
And I think Earl is going to end up on Fox.
Besides the fact that Chuck has better numbers, doesn’t NBC know they’ll get more out of the product placement for the stuff advertised on Chuck than on L&O. I understand longevity is nice but if the ratings are worse and the target audience of the better rated show gives you the ability to push more popular products, then isn’t it a better business deal to bring back Chuck.